Review of Kam C. Wong, Policing in Hong Kong

Wong’s book investigates various aspects of policing in Hong Kong, mainly after the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from England to China in 1997. The aspects selected for discussion include police accountability, police use of force, police beat patrol deployment, computer crime control, and police surveillance powers. The book also shows its inclusiveness by covering the discussion of police history in Hong Kong’s colonial period in its first chapter and the comparison of police reforms in Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China in its final chapter. In view of its coverage of various policing issues in Hong Kong, Wong’s book is of great interest to local policing scholars as well as police practitioners. It is also most suitable for being used as a teaching material for undergraduate courses on policing in Hong Kong.

The most impressive feature of Policing in Hong Kongis its cultural awareness in discussions of policing. As Peter Manning has rightly pointed out in this...